oday's guest spent his career studying healthcare from the outside — first in managed care operations, then as an investment banker doing healthcare M&A.Then he pivoted, bought a business, and got a crash course in the one thing the spreadsheets never fully prepared him for: working capital (what else?).

Chibunna Chimezie is a Nigerian immigrant who grew up in Jersey City, where his parents worked blue collar jobs for 25 years raising the family.After a Duke MBA and a stretch in healthcare investment banking, Chibunna went the self-funded SBA route — deliberately buying a smaller company so he could hold 89% of the equity rather than the roughly 25% a traditional search fund would have left him.

The business is Veterans Room, a behavioral health provider serving veterans.

Chibunna acquired it in August 2025 for $1.6 million.In his first week of ownership, a congressional fight froze all telehealth claims. So for nearly two months, Chibunna kept delivering services with no revenue coming in at all — a live demonstration of why he'd been so deliberate about post-acquisition liquidity. Listen for that.

Also listen for how he came to think about working capital: not as money, but as a tool the business needs to run — like gas in a car you've just bought.

Here is Chibunna Chimezie, owner of Veterans Room.